NH Public Radio interviews Longcore about deadly fungus affecting frogs
New Hampshire Public Radio spoke with Joyce Longcore, a chytrid researcher in the University of Maine’s School of Biology and Ecology, for the report “Will a deadly fungus destroy N.H.’s frog population? The answer is complicated.” Since it was first discovered, the chytrid fungus known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or BD, has been implicated in massive die-offs of amphibians in the Caribbean, South America, Spain and Portugal, as well as in a few species in Africa, according to the report. Longcore said the fungus has been in parts of North America for more a century. “They can go back to museum specimens and test, and I think they have gotten back into 1800s,” she said. Longcore added that bullfrogs in North America are actually resistant to BD, so it’s possible the fungus could have started here and then spread to Central America.